Jaliek Rainwalker's homicide case is cold 10 years after his disappearance

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Wednesday is the 10th anniversary of Jaliek Rainwalker's disappearance. To mark the date, his adoptive grandmother Barbara Reeley is imploring anyone with information on the presumed child homicide to come forward — especially if they can help point investigators to his body.

Because, until Jaliek's remains are found, Reeley said police will be hesitant to arrest the boy's parents Stephen Kerr and Jocelyn McDonald, who adopted him in 2003.

Jaliek was 12 years old when he was last seen on Nov. 1, 2007. He spent that night with Kerr at a relative's unoccupied home in Greenwich. In the morning, Kerr told police Jaliek was gone when he woke up.

Despite persistent accusations, Kerr has maintained his innocence for a decade. He and his wife hold out hope Jaliek is alive, according to their attorney, Jeffrey McMorris of Glens Falls.

"You're dealing with a family whose child is gone," McMorris said Tuesday. "They don't want to give up the idea that he's going to come home. I think there's a certain reality, but they are still hopeful. I think the police came to their conclusions in a short period of time."

Jaliek would have turned 22 in August.

In 2016 skull fragments found in a Coxsackie swamp along the Hudson River renewed interest in the case. Investigators later confirmed the bones did not belong to Jaliek.

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Greenwich-Cambridge police Chief George Bell said that, even though there haven't been any new leads in Jaliek's case since the skull was tested, he isn't giving up hope.

"I would ask everybody to go back through their memory," he said. "I don't care how small or how trivial it might be. I would love to hear from you."

Investigators elevated Jaliek's missing person case to a probable child homicide case in 2012 after following more than 500 leads. That announcement came days after police acting on a tip, used cadaver dogs to search for the boy's body at a Troy property but found nothing.

While Reeley is frustrated 10 years have passed without resolution, she said, "I'd rather have it done right than have it be a hung jury and have no resolution." Her biggest wish, she said, is to lay Jaliek to rest in a proper grave.

Jaliek, who was born to a drug-addicted mother and lived in six foster homes before Kerr and McDonald adopted him, lived with the couple's four other children in a house in the Greenwich hamlet of Cossayuna that had no indoor plumbing or TV and limited electricity. The family moved to West Rupert, Vt., four months after he disappeared.

"He had a very hard 12 years and I can't imagine that last evening," Reeley said, adding she was with his family the next day and noticed several "odd" behaviors.

Reeley recalled Tuesday hearing McDonald laugh at a friend who offered to search for the boy and watching Kerr roughly rub his eyes in an apparent effort to look like he'd been crying before speaking to the media.

"They didn't walk up and down the streets or go door to door," the grandmother recalled.

"I can still feel his arms around me and his head on my shoulder. He really needed validation that he was loved," Reeley said.

The "vivacious" boy loved to go apple picking, eat ice cream at Moxies and pizza at Kay's, and stay over at his grandmother's home, which he called "Granny Camp," Reeley said. He played music, with tarot cards and on the computer, she said.

"He was going to grow up to be a strong individual, with a yearning to have a family and a stable base," Reeley said. "He had hopes and dreams for his future."

Anyone with information can contact the Greenwich or Cambridge Police Departments, the State Police, the F.B.I. or the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children hotline at 1-800-843-5678.